


Captivating

by MortemGrimalkinMessor



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: But They Can Be Read Seperately, Dancing, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, One Shot Collection, This Is Turning Into An Actual Story Because I Can't Do One Shots, Touch-Starved, Trust Kink, that's a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-05 13:29:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16811569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MortemGrimalkinMessor/pseuds/MortemGrimalkinMessor
Summary: Stolen!Newt AU. A series of one-shots where Grindelwald kidnapped Newt sometime after New York, but before Paris.Rating subject to change.





	1. Experimenting With Closeness

Grindelwald was an extremely tactile man. Most would call him suggestive, or flirtatious, for how much he enjoys invading other people’s personal space. He found it grounding, to be able to physically touch whoever he’s talking to, to feel every shift and twitch and to be able to look into their eyes and read their thoughts in a way that had nothing to do with legilimency. It gave him that extra factor in human interaction that most people weren’t daring enough to achieve.

To slide a hand around someone’s waist or trace his fingers up their arm, a simple earnest look—whether it was truly earnest or not—would be enough to break distrust and build affection. He’d used this tactic liberally on both the Barebone boy and Albus, as it tended to entice some form of love into the mix. And Gellert knew as well as anybody, love was the greatest weapon one could weild.

On the other end of the spectrum, there was using the proximity to instill fear, or disturbia. To invade someone’s space, press himself flush against their sides with a too wide grin and a wild look in his eyes that spoke of poorly hidden madness—well, that kept them nervous. On the edge of their seat at the man’s unpredictability. Gellert’s touchiness made them uncomfortable and he _knew it_. After all, when people were anxious, it made them so, so easy to read.

Newt, however, was his exact foil. The man shied away from any kind of human interaction, whether it be handshakes or simple eye contact. He could stay in the corner of a room, spend the entire time with his eyes on the ground, have no one greet or speak to him, and be perfectly fine. More than fine in fact.

No, Newt’s medium, where he went for stability—was _noise_. Silence made his skin itch, uncomfortable pauses strung his nerves out raw, and the quiet scratched against his hands and feet until they spasmed and twitched for movement. He had a gramophone tucked away in the corner of the shack inside that damned suitcase of his, and nearly always had something playing. The roars and the titters and the growls and the coos of his creatures kept him sane in even his worst of moments.

It drove Gellert _mad_.

It also, predictably, made this all the more frustrating.

Newt sat idly in front of the fireplace, that infernal bowtruckle—Pickett, Newt called him—tucked into his hair, and that blasted niffler cradled in his arms. For a prisoner, he looked very comfortable. Then again, Gellert hadn’t considered Newt a prisoner for months now. Newt Scamander was not someone you could just…lock away. He was what the people of Flensburg would call _Wandervogel_. A Wanderer. And one did not simply _contain_ a Wanderer.

Gellert eyed Newt with his mouth twisted in displeasure. He himself was sat at his desk, documents that had begun to blur together hours ago splayed out in front of him. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Newt was his tendency to hide behind the facade of a skittish, weak-willed idealist. Oh Newt was most definitely an idealist, but he was neither skittish nor weak-willed about what he believed in. Gellert likened him to something of a thunderstorm. So gray and dull at a distance, a few tentative rolls of quiet thunder as a warning, but when it closed in you were left in a swirl of hail and lightning and wondering just how the hell you’d underestimated something so fierce.

’ _And tricksy,_ ’ Gellert thought bitterly. He glanced at the ornate clock hung just over the sofa. It had been two and a half hours. _Verdammt._

The situation was his own fault of course. His pride and unwillingness to back down from a clear challenge had distracted him from the fact that Newt had met his eyes then, and smiled in that innocent way of his that meant he felt he’d won an argument. And if Newt smiled, he usually had.

Ella Fitzgerald played softly from the far wall where the gramophone now rested. How it had made its way into Gellert’s study when they’d confiscated Newt’s case orginally, he had no clue. The snaps and cracks of the fire made his bones itch.

“Newton.”

Hazel eyes drew slowly up from the niffler’s belly, where Newt’s fingers were skating along its fur. 

Greedy animal.

Newt turned his head to look at the clock. A small smile tugged at his lips, and he glanced briefly at Gellert before shaking his head.

The Dark Lord drew his tongue across the backs of his teeth as his bare fingers drummed against the desktop—flighty. Fidgety. His gloves and jacket lay, abandoned, on the floor next to him, and his weskit fully unbuttoned, terribly untidy. Despite the fire roaring a few feet away, his skin itched terribly with cold. He cursed under his breath and shoved a hand through his hair, a snarl on his lips when he heard Newt’s quiet laughter from the floor.

Why he kept Newt around was a mystery in itself. Once it was clear that Newt had no information to give them on Albus’ movements or plans—a few drops of verituserum and a thorough rummage through the man’s mind was all it took—Gellert should have killed him and dumped him into the Pacific like he did with the rest of the wizards that proved useless to him. But for some reason, he hadn’t. Perhaps it had been his curiosity about the man that had somehow managed to kneel him when the United States best Aurors could not. Perhaps it was the fact that Gellert had overheard a conversation of Flamel and Albus where he’d learned that it _had_ to be Newt. If he was honest, Gellert did not know himself.

So interesting. This man that—to Gellert, at least—was unbreakable. Oh, sure, they had yet to torture the youngest Scamander, but something told Gellert he wouldn’t get very far. Graves had been easy. A knife to his pride, a gun to his loved ones, and a very specific threat about what external organs he could stand to be losing, and Graves bent. He went hissing and spitting, but he’d bent.

But Newt? A man whose pride meant nothing, a man whose body was already covered scars, a man who did not become despondent when faced with threatened loved ones, but _daring_ and _angry_. Though he didn’t test his hypothesis, Gellert was somehow certain that nothing he thought to do would be enough to break Newt. So he waited, and watched.

One did not simply contain a Wanderer, no. But when a Wanderer decided to stay?

Gellert had given Newt a slow-expanding range of the base to explore. There were Anti-Apparition wards in place, and Newt’s creatures being locked up somewhere he couldn’t get to them, he wouldn’t leave anyway. But. But when a soft request came to his door, not a plea, but a _request_ , to be allowed to at least care for the beasts if he could not have them back, Gellert found himself agreeing. Whether it be because his leverage would mean nothing to Newt starved and dead, or that for the first time he was meeting those eyes head on and saw not timidity there, but determination, he could not say.

A strange tolerance had built between them after that. Shared teas with idle banter, the occasional under-the-breath retort about the other (politically) being an idiot, and minimal touching, it all came down to something that wasn’t quite friendship, and yet wasn’t quite opposition. For lack of a better explanation, they were comfortable with each other in a way that shouldn’t have been possible.

It all led to now.

“You’re very friendly with everyone. For a Dark Lord.” Newt had mentioned curiously after watching Gellert practically feel up one of his Knights before sending him on a mission that morning.

"You will find, Newton, that having a hand in a bit of everything will get you further in life.” Gellert had drawled with a disinterested expression. Not the true reason, of course, and Newt had seen through him immediately.

Those eyes had looked up and locked with his, thunder low along his irises. "Are you sure it isn’t just that you enjoy a bit of humanity every now and then?”

"Humanity? Of course not.”

“Oh? My mistake. Surely, it would easy for you to stop, if you so wished. I forgot that you’re not a slave to foolish desires like the rest of us.” Newt had replied, not derisively, but with just enough of _something_ in his voice to make Gellert bristle. Then Newt had continued feeding the sick occamy he had been holding, like he hadn’t said anything untoward at all.

Which he _hadn’t_ , but such was Newt’s way that people looked for meaning where there was none, and in doing so completely missed disregarded the truth of Newt’s rare sentences. To underestimate Newt meant to fool himself—and Gellert had done exactly that.

“Absolutely not. Wherever did you get that notion? Of course it would be easy for me to stop.”

“Of course.” Newt had conceded easily, though he didn’t look up again.

It had left Gellert quietly fuming, though his voice remained calm. “It would be easy. In fact, I will take the whole day off from my ‘friendliness’, as you say, if it would disprove your outrageous claims of my seeking _humanity_.”

Newt had given him that slow, demure smile, and given his assent to being Gellert’s timer.

That left them here. Night solidly fallen upon the outside world, and left him with only Fitzgerald’s voice (a muggle singer, the _Schlot_ ) and Newt’s soft humming for company. The sporadic purrs of the niffler permeated the thick air from time to time, but Newt stayed firmly on floor, away from Gellert.

Touch was not just grounding, for Gellert. It was more than grounding. It helped assert control over a situation, and calmed his perpetually racing thoughts until he could focus on what needed to be done. By the unkempt state of the files on his desk, and his own ruffled appearance, Gellert decidedly _not_ in control of this situation. He could sit in his study alone all day and work, if he needed to. But with someone perched in the corner of his vision, just too far away to reach out a physically grasp—it was driving him up the wall.

It was _infuriating_.

The clock ticked lowly across the room, but Gellert did not look at it again. He flexed his hands against the wood of the desk and drew in a shaky breath. “Newton.” Newt glanced at him again, almost amused, but listening. Gellert met his eyes, every nerve out and raw and horribly exposed. ” _Please_.“

Shock was the first emotion on Newt’s face, before it faded into something like pleased surprise. He dipped his head once in agreement. That was all Gellert needed.

He was on the floor in seconds, knees pressed into the carpet at Newt’s back, arms secured around his torso, and Gellert’s forehead placed at the nape of his neck. The Dark Lord released a rattled breath and slumped against Newt, the static of his thoughts muted once more. Thunder rumbled in his ears, but there was no lightning, no hail. He threaded his shaking fingers up through auburn curls with a content hum, a note of surprise when Newt leaned back into the touch. The bowtruckle tittered in indignance. They both ignored it.

_Compromise_ , Newt had once mentioned, _If we could just compromise I think we’d all be better off_.

If this was compromise, Gellert didn’t like it. But…it wasn’t too bad. He could deal with it, if he had to, no more no less, if it meant getting this. This calm companionship, this odd feeling of mutual misplaced _trust_.

"I am getting rid of your gramophone.” Gellert murmured into Newt’s jaw as he fitted himself flush against Newt’s spine and curled over his shoulders.

Newt just gave him that slow, sweet smile, and Gellert was irritated to find that he almost smiled back.

They both knew that he wouldn’t.


	2. Outside

“It’s beautiful, no?”

Newt whipped his head around, those hazel eyes as wide as a startled doe’s as they alighted on Grindewald’s figure. At some point the man had appeared just behind him, to the side a bit, like he’d been walking down the hall and stopped when he’d seen Newt standing there.

The manor was dark at night, all manner of lanterns and candles set to extinguish themselves at a certain time. For a wizard of any caliber, it wouldn’t be a problem so long as they could cast a strong _lumos_.

But Newt remained devoid of his wand.

He crept to this wing of the manor often during his nightly wanders about the halls, too restless to sleep. The entire outer wall was made of curved glass that looked out onto the moor beyond, covered in flowers and sweetgrass. But it was getting to be winter now, and all those lilac bulbs and stalks were blanketed in a thick layer of frost.

The moon was full and bright, the lack of any other residents making it so the stars pierced through the sky with crystallized ease. If Newt squinted hard enough, he could even make out their colors.

Grindelwald looked like some sort of character from a story, just then. He stood in his all black robes wih his hands clasped regally at the small of his back. The moonlight poured over him and glinted off his slicked back hair so much that it looked like real metal—a blade to could cut the toughest of men. His eyes were cursed jewels within an egyptian tomb, the night’s light beaming off them until they **burned** , white-hot, into Newt’s very _soul_.

Newt did not look at the field again as he rasped out a hoarse, “Yes...”

“The seasons change rather quickly, here. It’s just a shame to miss the coloring of the leaves, do you not think so?” Grindelwald murmured with a sneaky glance towards Newt, only to blink when he realized the redhead was staring right back at him. When he met Gellert’s eyes, his freckles disappeared beneath a deep hue of red that spread all the way to his shoulders. Newt turned away quickly, more sheepish and shy than Gellert had ever seen him.

“Yes,” Newt rushed out under his breath, shoulders hanging somewhere around his ears. “A shame.”

He could feel those heterochromatic eyes on him for a moment more, and it sent something...odd, down his spine. He shivered.

The quiet sound of shifting fabrics sounded just before warm arms encircled his chest and gloved hands skated over his collarbones. Newt sucked in a breath, surprised, but didn’t struggle. The hall was still and cold, and Newt couldn’t help but lean back into the warmth of something _alive_.

A sigh by his ear. “If I let you stretch your wings, _mein kleiner Feuervogel_...” He paused, contemplative. Then he sighed again, heavier this time, and slid his palms down until they cupped Newt’s cold ones. Then he stepped aside and tangled their fingers together, an odd look in his eyes as he began to tug Newt down the hall. “Come.”

Newt’s lips parted, but he found no words to protest. His bare feet made little padding noises as he stumbled after the Dark Lord, pins and needles spreading quickly through his soles as the blood rushed back to them.

Grindelwald led him to a small side door off to the side of the large glass wall; it was tucked away in the shadows, hidden so well that Newt hadn’t even noticed it there. With a quiet murmur and a wave of his fingers, the air around the door shimmered and dulled. Grindelwald nodded to himself in satisfaction, then pulled Newt forward again. Gloved fingers pushed the door open and swept them both out into the night. Newt gasped as his bare skin met the chilling frost of the grass, but choked it off halfway, his breath stolen from his lungs.

_Outside._

The sensation of the night wrapped around him like a lover, the winter chill sharp in his chest amoung the perfume of the moor’s flowers, muted by ice. The wind, wild and unblocked by trees or buildings, whipped around his ankles and carded through his curls until Newt felt so light that the next current might’ve blown him away.

Grindelwald watched him intently, unblinking. He walked Newt until they were a good ways away from the manor. He watched as Newt shivered when they passed through the wards, hazel eyes wider than ever, stunned. He did not take out his wand. He did not tighten his grip. 

There was nothing left between them, or after, and yet Gellert Grindelwald...did nothing at all.

Newt breathed, starlight in his chest, and stared at Grindelwald. He turned his eyes to the moon, opals of earth, then slowly turned his wonder-filled gaze back to the Dark Lord. Newt took a step forward and folded his fingers down between Grindelwald’s, securing his hold. “It’s much colder than I expected.”

Grindelwald chuckled, an awed, breathy sound, and understood that the cold did not bother Newt at all. That he welcomed it. That he welcomed _this_.

“Dance with me, _mein Feuervogel_ ,” Grindelwald mused as he twisted their hands to tug Newt closer to him, to settle his other hand on his waist. He twirled them once together, an offering. “And you will forget the chill entirely.” With a snap of his fingers, Newt’s gramophone appeared just within the wards, Ella Fitzgerald still singing softly about love and lust and freedom.

Perhaps it should’ve told Newt something then, when he knew that he felt all three, however muted, however vibrant, however fleeting—they were there, and they were singing with him.

He knew the end of Grindelwald’s question from before. He knew what the Dark Lord was asking wordlessly now.

‘If I let you stretch your wings’ _would you fly away from me_?

Newt knew what he would’ve said, would have _had_ to say, had he been asked aloud. And Grindelwald seemed to know that. Seemed to know that Newt’s mind and heart were at war in the worst of ways, that he was tearing himself apart. So he was giving Newt this. He was giving Newt a choice. Asking the same question with a different meaning, without asking anything at all. Knowing that, this way, whatever answer Newt decided to give, he could be content in knowing that it was his choice entirely.

That was why, with no shame at all, Newt slid forward and placed his hand on Grindelwald’s shoulder. He watched those heterochromatic eyes widen slightly, and knew that this was right. Grindelwald had been expecting him to leave. To vanish into the night and rejoin his brother and MACUSA, and to reclaim his life. And he would’ve let him go. The knowledge of that simple fact set Newt’s chest alight.

Yes, he had made the right decision.

The corner of Grindelwald’s mouth tipped up, and his eyes began to glimmer mischievously. He let out a laugh and swung them around again, into a waltz that kept in time with Fitzgerald’s voice about freedom, about hope, about heartbreak. Newt huffed and smiled himself, his fingers tingling as he stumbled after a man who didn’t seem to mind his partner’s ineptitude. Who just seemed content to dance with him.

“Do you know why the caged bird sings, Newton?” Grindelwald breathed as he swung Newt into a dip at the song’s end. He seemed to devour the sight of freckled cheeks flushed with giddiness, of hazel eyes glowing with moonlight.

Newt bit his lip, and gazed up at him, contemplative and searching. “...No,” He said at length.

“But I think I would like to.”


	3. Traitor

The ampitheatre filled with the sound of disapparation as Newt felt Niff climb back into his coat. Grindelwald gave a rather dramatic twirl of his wand and bright blue Fiendfyre erupted in a circle around the dias like a sweltering, roaring moat. Newt felt lightheaded, all the blood in his face draining as dread settled like a anvil in his stomach.

Vinda Rosier crossed the lake of fire easily, as did Abernathy, but when Krall went to cross, he halted halfway and began to scream as his body disintegrated into ash. It only took a few moments, but the shriek rang around the room like a warning for all those foolish enough to have stayed behind. It was a promise of swift, excruciating, death. A promise that no one could decieve the Dark Lord Grindelwald.

“My brothers, sisters,” Grindelwald called, almost pleasantly, from the dias. “The choice is simple. We fight for a new age. For freedom. For love.” He spread his arms wide in invitation. “Escape from this room is nay impossible. Join me, or die.” It was not a threat. It never was, and never would be. The intent in his words was genuine, if misplaced.

Newt swallowed and glanced around the room. Tina stood between two men just before the circle, lips pursed and face white. The girl from the circus stood with Credence, not far away from them. Theseus stood to Newt’s right, a furious look on his face, his normally immaculate auburn curls in complete disarray from his frustration.

This moment was pivotal. Irreversible. Once a decision was made in this room, there would be no going back.

_I don’t do sides._

Newt briefly (hysterically) envied the poor girl who had been killed just moments before, blessedly unaware of the turmoil left behind.

The aurors rushed forwards, wands at the ready, only for Grindelwald to flick his wand absently towards them and sweep them up in deadly tongues of sky blue flame. A few tried to disapparate as well, but the Fiendfyre reared up and destroyed them just before they disappeared. Newt watched with ice in his heart as Queenie tried to pull Jacob with her towards the circle. Her screech of desperation and Jacob’s look of horrified dismay as she turned and went to Grindelwald said it all.

Queenie was lost.

Newt felt Theseus step onto the step beside him. His presence, which Newt normally found a bit suffocating, eased his cluttered, panicked mind. For all of three seconds.

“Mr. Scamander,” Merlin, his voice was so _cold_. Newt felt the fleeting but prominent urge to ask, ‘Which one?’ He stifled it as he saw Grindelwald shift his gaze from Theseus to Newt. There was a flash of something there—pain, betrayal, longing, hunger—but it was gone so quickly Newt could’ve argued that he imagined it. “Do you think Dumbledore will mourn for you?” He was most definitely speaking to Newt now.

Therefore Newt was not surprised when the next flame lashed out at his face. He whipped his wand up in unison with Theseus to keep from getting burned, pulse loud in his ears.

As Newt struggled to keep the flame away from him, he saw Credence come down out of the corner of his eye, and for the first time that night, he felt a flicker of fear. Fear for this child who was desperate for love, who was desperate to belong, who could be shattered so easily.

Newt didn’t think—he _moved_. He yelled Credence’s name, but the boy didn’t seem to be able to hear him. He tore away from the girl’s arm and went through the circle to take Grindelwald’s arm. Credence disappeared.

“Grindelwald! Stop!” It was Leta.

Newt felt rather like he was having several, simultaneous heart attacks.

He wondered if this was how Theseus felt most of the time.

“Ms. Lestrange,” Grindelwald mused with a small smile. He left the dias to slide up towards Leta, a hand outstretched. “Unloved by your kind, unwanted by your family." He paused just a step below her, welcoming. "Come home, my dear.” He let Leta clasp his hand for a moment, and Newt felt his heart stop.

“Leta, no!” Newt shouted as he lept—quite literally _lept_ —over a rowdy tendril of fire to race towards his childhood friend.

Grindelwald’s smile twitched and slid off his lips. His expression became blank, stony. He stepped back and let his hand slip from Leta’s. Turning on heel, he beckoned for her over his shoulder, a lure and a threat in his eyes.

Newt skidded to a stop on the step three above Leta's just as Grindelwald stepped back onto the dias. Swallowing harshly and biting back the whisper of a plea, Newt tore his eyes from Grindelwald and focused on Leta. He held out his own hand from above. "Leta please," He rasped. "Please."

Because the circle of Fiendfyre was very clear that only those truly loyal to Grindelwald could pass through it with any ease. And Leta; he knew Leta, and she wasn't loyal to Grindelwald, she _couldn't_ be, not if she truly loved Theseus.

Because she was his best friend, and because he loved his brother, he could not let her go.

Thankfully, Leta seemed to be questioning it herself. War in her eyes, she searched Newt's face with what looked like pain, then hesitantly reached out to take his hand. Newt let out a sigh of relief and clasped their hands together with a lopsided smile as he stepped down beside her.

But something wasn't right. Leta's eyes teared up, and she tightened her grip on his hand. "I'm sorry."

Then she whirled and slung him down the last three steps and into the Fiendfyre. Newt gasped as he felt himself go weightless for a moment, and then abruptly crash down into the spitting tongues of flame below. He tensed up, eyes squinted shut, as his shoulder hit the concrete floor and he braced himself for the horrible pain of burning to death.

But there was nothing.

Newt's eyes popped open and he scrambled to his feet. He stood, chest heaving, in the middle of the fire. Hazel eyes found blue, and saw that Theseus was gawking at him in disbelief, just as Tina had a hand clapped over her mouth, and Leta...Newt wasn't even going to look at Leta.

The other aurors in the room had stopped what they were doing, eyes dark and angry on his shaking form. Because Newt should be dead. The fact that he was not, well, it said much more than any words ever could.

Unbidden, Newt's eyes burned with oncoming tears. He stumbled back away from the glares of the aurors, the dreadful disbelief in his brother's eyes, and Jacob's doubly heartbroken face. Like a skittish animal, Newt shied away from their eyes, and their feelings, because he was having quite a time of his own, thank you very much. This just voiced the fear that Newt had already confirmed inside his own head.

_**Traitor** _

Newt gasped again as he tripped backward, only to be caught by familiar, warm hands. When he looked back, he saw that the ice in Grindelwald's eyes had thawed. Shock and awe had taken its place.

A blink and they became half-lidded, glimmering. " _Mein Feuervogel_..."

Newt's heart _ached_. He panicked.

Grindelwald tightened his grip on Newt just as he began to struggle. He tugged the frantic magizoologist into his chest as Newt turned pleadingly towards his brother, who had gone stark pale.

"T-Theseus, please! Thes—"

And then everything was gone.


	4. High Tension

Newt choked on air when they whirled to a stop in a very elaborate foyer, the sudden feeling of apparition accompanied by his panic making it hard to breathe. He sucked in a breath and shoved hard at Grindelwald’s chest.

“Let go—let _go of me_!”

“Ah, _mein lieblicher Feuervogel_ , I have missed you,” Grindelwald sighed as he pressed his mouth to Newt’s forehead. “I thought I had lost you.” He slid his lips down Newt’s temple to catch him in a kiss.

Newt’s knees buckled and his lips parted on instinct. His back arched and a soft gasp escaped his mouth in a startlingly strong wave of desire. Grindelwald chuckled breathlessly, and the sound drew Newt to the front of his clouded mind. Newt bit him.

Grindelwald released him with a jolt, and Newt crumpled to the floor, his knees still weak. Swiping a thumb across his bleeding lip, the blond blinked owlishly, then laughed uproariously. Newt glared furiously up at him as he tried to climb back to his feet.

The magizoologist was incensed. “Where have you taken me now? What outlandish place—”

He was cut off by Grindelwald swooping down to kiss him yet again. He had pulled away before Newt could nip him again, a smirk on his lips. “You’re in Nurmengard castle, Newton. The base for all my international operations.” Grindelwald cupped Newt’s face in his hands and his eyes glittered dimly. “A safe house for all my most loyal.”

Newt swallowed, and tugged his jaw out of the man’s palms. “I...I’m not...”

“Oh but you _are_ , Newton, you are. I made my instructions to my Fyre very specific. I expected Krall to perish, but you surprised me. After you left, I thought the worst. I thought you betrayed me.” Those heterochromatic eyes darkened and he dropped his hands to hold Newt’s waist. “But you still want me, don’t you?”

Newt needed to leave, _now_. This was dangerous, very, very dangerous, because that look in Grindelwald’s eyes spoke of promises that made his toes curl and his cheeks heat, and if Newt did not leave now he was going to do something he could not take back.

Wracking his brain for something, anything, to change the subject, Newt stuttered out, “L-Leta!”

Grindelwald didn’t seem too concerned. He leaned closer as his thumbs pushed up under Newt’s shirt. “What about her?”

“Why did she...” Newt shuddered and grabbed Grindelwald’s wrists to keep him from going any further. “Why did she try to kill me?”

“Perhaps she knew where your heart truly lay.” Grindelwald murmured as he leaned forward to nose at Newt’s neck, undeterred.

“But she couldn’t have known that! I-I didn’t...She couldn’t have—” Newt cut himself off with a yelp as Grindelwald sunk his teeth into the juncture of his shoulder. He released the man’s wrists on instinct, and those hands skated up to rake nails gently down his back. Newt’s back arched and then Grindelwald was picking him up and slamming him against the nearest wall.

Grindelwald pinned Newt to the wall with his hips, eyes dark. “And where does your heart truly lie, Newton? Through your skewed morales and the falsities of your tongue, do you think it still rests with your so called friends, who were so quick to turn on you, to look at you with _contempt_ after all you’ve done for them,” Newt’s fingers twisted in Grindelwald’s coat lapels as he leaned closer to him. “Or do you still long for _more_?”

Newt seemed to have swallowed his tongue. He knew where his heart lied: within the crackles of a fireplace and the tick of a clock, within the frost of a moor and the spackle of moonlight, within the soft tune of swing and cries of griffins.

He opened his mouth—to answer, to deny, to confirm or reassure. But his reply, whatever it had been, was devoured by Grindelwald’s mouth as it descended onto his. A devilish tongue swept across his palate, tasting, searching, dominating. Newt groaned and his hands scrabbled up Grindelwald’s chest to clutch at the back of his neck, the legs dangling at the Dark Lord’s sides tightening to hook around his hips and pull him impossibly closer.

Newt had forgotten, in his conflict, that Grindelwald was as skilled in Legilimency as Dumbledore was, nor did he much care, at the moment.

Gloved fingers slid up into his curls and tugged. Newt’s breath hitched as his head was pulled back and that skilled mouth left his to scorch a trail down his neck. A startled, helpless moan slipped from Newt’s chest as Grindelwald latched his lips onto the pale column of his neck and sucked.

“Gill...” Newt panted, unable to help himself.

“Do you love me, _mein Feuervogel_?” Gellert breathed as he pulled back. His hand tightened in Newt’s hair as his other hand slid to cup the redhead’s thigh.

“I know what happened to the last person who loved you,” Newt gasped out when Gellert yanked his hair again.

“Albus is inconsequential. I had to make him love me to move on with my plans.” He grumbled into the curve of Newt’s throat.

“And look how well that turned out.” It came out high-pitched and breathy, not the scathing tone he had been going for.

A wicked smile curled against the underside of Newt’s jaw. “Ah, but the difference between you and him, my darling, is that unlike Albus, your love is requited.” He let go of Newt’s hair to reach down and slip his palm beneath the redhead’s trousers to grasp his hip. Newt jerked and he grinned. “So, I will ask again, Newton. Do you love me?”

Newt was on _fire_ , an uncontrollable, almost contemptous, wave of desire searing through his body. Gellert’s hand on his hip acted as a heat source that scoured his skin like he really _had_ been thrown into Fiendfyre.

“Yes,” Newt gasped. “Merlin, yes, I love you. I-I—” _Want you_. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to.

Gellert’s grip on his hip tightened for a moment, and then in a dizzy swirl of color, the foyer was gone and replaced by a dim bedroom. Apparition, perhaps, but he was too dizzy to tell. Newt went tilting backward onto the bed, Gellert following after him. A murmured slew of words, and a light tingle emanated from Gellert’s palm. A light chill brought goosebumps to Newt’s skin and he jolted.

Gellert had vanished his clothes.

Before Newt could work up enough of a mind to be indignant about that, the Dark Lord’s mouth descended on his once more.

The kiss languid, the flame of arousal in Newt’s abdomen bubbling up until it was more like a volcanic eruption, lava sloughing through his limbs until he could think of nothing else but the body on top of his. 

A groan rumbled from Gellert’s lips as he made his way with teeth and tongue back down Newt’s bruised throat to nip at his collarbones. He wanted to map every scar, every blemish, every freckle, until he had charted the very sky with his tongue. Nimble fingers slid shakily into his hair, and he purred.

"I shouldn't be doing this," Newt breathed. "This is wrong." Despite his words, he still leaned into Gellert's touch.

"Is that not the best kind of thing to be doing, _mein Feuervogel_?" Gellert moaned into the supple flesh of Newt's stomach.

"You've killed people," Newt choked out.

"You left me,"

"You lied to me."

"You betrayed my trust." Gellert rumbled, almost affectionately, his eyes a bit melancholy as he scrubbed his stubble along the inside of Newt's thigh. He glanced up, eyes half-lidded. "And I still love you."

And with that, Newt was gone. This, the head of their mutual, extremely misplaced, trust. It swept him up like nothing else could. 

He keened when Gellert pressed a kiss to the juncture of his thigh, just beside the aching swell of his cock. Mouthing something into the skin of Newt's hip, he held the magizoologist still as he jerked, a wet and empty feeling encompassing his entrance.

Gellert's own tumescence was starting to get to him, but he refrained. No, he wanted to worship the man beneath him, to show his darling true rapture. The beauty to his beast.

Taking the middle finger of his glove between his teeth, he slowly, sensually, tugged it off. He did the same with the other one, delighting in the heady flush that dusted roses across Newt's cheeks. Gellert pressed Newt's hips into the bed, then took him into his mouth. Newt instinctively tried to buck his hips up, but Gellert had a firm grip on him.

"Oh, _oh_ ," Newt threw his head back as pleasure burned its way through him, the hot mouth around his length almost too much to bear. "Gill, please, _please_." He begged breathlessly.

Gellert hummed pleasantly around him and pushed his middle finger against Newt's now slick opening. It sunk in easily, up to the hilt. Gellert thrust it shallowly in and out, the pad of his finger sliding smoothly along the walls of pulsing heat. The spell he'd used made it so that he could forego stretching entirely, but he wanted to find—

Newt jolted and let out a startled moan, spine curving off the duvet as his fingers tightened viciously in Gellert's hair.

Ah. There it was.

Pleased, and a bit smug, he pulled his mouth off Newt's erection with a lewd pop. Newt whined at the loss, but let his hands fall to Gellert's shoulders as he removed his finger and straightened up to unbuckle his trousers.

Newt’s nails raked down his shoulder blades as he caught a glimpse of the size Gellert was packing. The Dark Lord hissed at the sting and his cock gave an appreciative twitch. Gellert always had been a bit of a masochist. He waved away his own shirt, but keep his trousers, belt buckle dangling to the side. There were no words to christen this moment, to give it more meaning than it already had, but as he sunk himself soundly into the liquid heat of Newt Scamander, he relished the knowledge that his buckle was biting a welt into the plushness of the redhead’s ass.

Gellert may have been a bit masochistic, but sadistic? To his very faults. By the time he was done, Newt would have that mark for _days_.

Newt gurgled out a strangled sound and rolled his hips up. Snapping back into the moment, Gellert glanced up to meet his eyes. Newt’s breath hitched. The potent hunger, the roiling darkness, the possessiveness that he usually scorned—it screamed of something raw and primal that made his toes curl.

Despite that look, however, Gellert was not quick to finish. He took his time, harsh rolls of his hips pushed him so deeply into Newt that he struck his prostate with mind-numbing precision.

“My body cannot lie to you, Newton,” Gellert whispered hotly into his ear. “Whatever my tongue may craft, you can know that this is real. That I have not lied. And in this, you cannot hide from me either. No more leaving. No more running away.” He devoured Newt’s answering moan and pulled back to lick the string of saliva from that swollen bottom lip. “I will not lie, and you will not abandon me. Do you understand?”

“Y-You...ah, _hah_...you can’t kill anyone, a-anymore,” Newt panted out, somehow seeming stern even through his flushed face.

“I am afraid that I cannot promise you that, _mein Feuervogel_. Not after today. They killed on of my own. You cannot tell me not to defend my people.” Gellert gripped Newt’s hips and tilted them slightly to the left as he picked up his pace.

Newt lost all coherent train of thought as he let out a mewl, fingers dug harshly into Gellert’s hair. He came with a cry, his vision whited out, and he slumped, boneless, onto the mattress. The combination of the heat undulating around his length, and the sight of his Wanderer coming undone with ecstasy sent Gellert right over the edge after him.

Hips stuttering to a stop, Gellert leaned down to sink his teeth into the magizoologist’s shoulder with a gutteral moan. Warm, raspy breathes puffed by his ear in the quiet as they floated back from their respective highs. When his chest had stopped heaving, Gellert eased himself out of Newt, fascinated with the trickle of white that burbled out after him. The majority of Newt’s freckles were hidden beneath a deep hue of scarlet as he caught where Gellert was staring.

With an amused huff, Gellert fell down onto the bed beside him and tugged him into his arms. Auburn curls tucked beneath his chin, he hummed as he felt hesitant fingers splay across his chest.

“I mean it, Gellert,” Newt mumbled into the softness between them, eyes tired. “No more unnecessary killing. Promise me.” He said stubbornly.

 _Unnecessary?_ Gellert’s lips curled up where Newt couldn’t see. “Of course, my darling. I promise.”


	5. Our Actions Our Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anyone up for a flashback?

When Newt sunk into the comforting arms of slumber, he found his mind dragged back to the memories of before. Before he’d gathered the will, the knowledge, the heart, to leave. To _escape_. 

Newt liked to wander the halls of the manor when he had finished tending to his creatures, his wanderlust barely sated by the titters and roars of his pseudo-children and the view of the moor beyond. It gave his feet something to do, his mind something to focus on other than the fact that he was straddling the line between light and dark each day he stayed in this place. 

Gellert tended to blur that line a lot better than Newt could ever hope to, however. As much as Newt liked to argue with the man on their political views—often too casual for either of their tastes, but unable to stop—he was no longer as set in his ways as he had been, no matter what he’d told Gellert. 

When he had started thinking of him as Gellert, he had no clue.

Pickett chirped into his ear, tucked behind it like an idle quill, as Newt took his pencil between his teeth as he balanced a stack of books in his hands to tote them back to his room. The Grindelwald library was _enormous_ , and Newt would be hexed if he wasn’t going to make use of it. There was an entire section dedicated to the study and cataloguing of dragons.

His time with the Ukrainian Ironbellies during the first war was brief, but educational, though it left Newt with an itch in his skull that he hadn’t been able to scratch since. The distaste Newt felt for the Ministry was due in a large part to them shutting down his operation because no one else could get close to the dragons without getting fried.

Hipchecking the door to his room open, he staggered over to his night table and dropped the books gratefully onto it. 

" _Non, putain d'idiot!_ The other way! I will not be the one to tell him that you somehow messed up something so simple as directions."

“Simple? You try this then, ya tramp! They’re bigger ‘n hell, it’s hard to get ‘em through the doors!”

Newt perked up at the distant arguing and left his books to poke his head out into the hallway. The voices were coming from down the stretch and around the corner. He pursed his lips.

While it wasn’t uncommon for Gellert’s Grimms to mill about the manor, to accept missions and relay information and the like, they normally didn’t venture to this side of the manor. It was why Gellert had put Newt there in the first place—less chance of him convincing one of the Grimms to take pity on him and help him escape. Newt doubted that he could actually do that as every follower he’d ever come across was fiercely loyal to Gellert, but apparently the Dark Lord considered it to be a real possibility.

The voice from before was the high, smooth shout of Vinda Rosier, Gellert’s righthand. Vinda held a certain...disdain, for Newt. The feeling was almost mutual.

For that reason alone, Newt ventured out of his room and padded down the hall towards the ruckus. Brow furrowed at an inhuman screech, Newt quickened his steps.

"Merlin’s buggering tits! Shut it up!"

" _Do not touch it!_ " Vinda screamed. "A single hair out of place, and it is your head that we will be feeding it, do you understand?"

"Ms. Rosier? What’s—?" Newt clicked his jaw shut as he rounded the corner. Hazel eyes widened in shock.

Before him, in the center of the drawing room, stood a rough-hewn man Newt had never seen before. Beside him was the largest Gryffin Newt had ever seen in his life. There was a leather rein around its beak, wrapped around to the man’s arm. 

Across the room, next to the door that had abruptly been slammed shut at the sight of him, stood a cross looking Vinda. "Mr. Scamander," She said clippedly. "Go back to your rooms. Please."

But Newt could see the ruffled feathers and the matted fur and the blood spilled across the Gryffin’s hind legs. Rage igniting in his chest, the magizoologist stalked forward. "What have you done to it? What purpose could you _possibly_ have for—"

"Mr. Scamander, we have not hurt the beast.” Vinda shot back sharply, eyes narrowed. She paused for a moment, contemplative, the turned on heel and opened the door behind her. "Come. I will show you." She stalked off into the next room, and Newt gave the man standing next to Gryffin a dirty look before slowly following.

Newt managed to drag his eyes away from the Gryffin to look beyond the doorway, and stopped dead. It was one of the smaller offices, cleared of all furniture with a large bed of maple leaves and wheat stalks woven together in the middle o the room. On that bed rested five baby cubs, their eyes barely opened and little bodies still covered in amniotic fluid. One looked in his direction and gave a weak chirp.

Understanding and compassion blossomed in Newt’s chest, unable to hold onto his indignant rage in the face of such innocent need. He quickly shucked his vest and rolled up his sleeves. 

"I’ll need a vat of warm water, twelve stalks of lavender, and a garden snake. The mother needs to be brought in as well."

"Very well." While Vinda did not seem surprised that Newt had jumped to their aid so quickly, her lips twisted, sour, at being told what to do. " _Le paysan!_ Get it in here!"

"I’m comin’, I’m comin’." The man barked as he lead the despondent Gryffin into the other room. 

Newt’s heart ached at the weak trill she gave at the sight of her cubs, and his eyes sharpened on the man holding the reins. He would ask questions later—and he _would_ be getting answers. But for now, they needed his help.

Vinda conjured up a tub of hot water, along with a work table to the side of the nest. Once everything had been set out on the table, Vinda and the man left Newt to his work with little fuss.

Newt cradled each cub and gently washed them clean of the fluids, then crushed the lavender stalks into paste to distill later. The garden snake, a small brown thing writhing inside a glass jar, hissed when he popped off the lid. Newt felt a twinge of guilt as he reached in and plucked it out. Whispering a quiet apology, he decapitated it—the quickest death he could currently give—and then divided it amongst the cubs for food. 

With the cubs busy, he finished distilling the lavender and polished it off into a vial with a baster at the top. Eyedrops, to ease the strain on their eyes. Cubs weren’t supposed to be kept in direct light right after being born, they to be given time to adjust. Judging from their current state, Newt was going to assume that had been given no such thing.

The mother watched him silently as he milled about with her children, oddly silent, then tipped her head at him when he turned his attention to her. The bit of wandless magic Newt could do consisted occasional summoning, a little of conjuring, and a single charm. 

Newt gently took her by the reins and rested his other palm against her beak. " _Relashio._ " The Gryffin jolted at the sudden feeling of too-tight bonds being released, a soft squawk slipping from her ruffled chest. Newt released the useless reins and smoothed his hands down her neck. "Sh, girl, it’s okay. You’re going to be alright. Come with me."

Somehow, he managed to coax the mother Gryffin over to the tub of water so her could clean her up as well, then let her hesitantly wander back to her babies, who cooed at her prescence. She curled around them with a happy, tired trill, and bucked her head up into Newt’s hand as he patted her crown.

Newt chuckled softly. "You need a name, don’t you? How about...Fiona. Can you live with that one for a while?"

She chirped at him.

"Fiona it is."

"Mr. Scamander." Vinda’s voice came from the doorway, arms behind her back.

Newt looked over and narrowed his eyes at her. He gave Fiona one last pat before straightening and walking over to Vinda. He followed her out of the room and tensed a bit as she shut the door behind him. He crossed his arms.

Vinda was unaffected. "They are looking better."

"What on earth were you lot thinking?" Was Newt’s immediate angry response. "Are you hosting a trafficking ring somewhere on the grounds? In the house?”

"What an absurd accusation."

"Then please explain to me where you acquired an abused, forcefully mated Gryffin and her cubs."

"As you said, the were acquired," Vinda drawled. "Our Lord discovered an illegal breeding camp near our borders, and sent us to disband it. Any creatures found alive were to be brought back here."

Newt’s brow furrowed. "Why would he want them here?"

Vinda gave him a look that made him feel simultaneously very stupid, and very important. "So you could care for them, Mr. Scamander. What use are injured or dead animals to a man that is not like you?"

He froze. He knew what she meant, of course. She was implying that they would be used in the war against the Ministries. But that was not what Newt heard.

_What use are they...To a man that is not like you?_

_To a man that is **not like you**_...

Newt heard Vinda speaking, something probably important, but he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears. In that moment, he felt like starlight.

Vinda let out an indignant shout as Newt turned and walked briskly down the opposite hall, a purpose to his steps. His eyes were wide, so single-minded in his revelations that he didn’t even notice that Pickett had stayed with Fiona. His quick walk transformed into a run, until he was sprinting down the halls towards his destination. 

The halls were empty, the doors unguarded as he passed, but he couldn’t focus on that. Newt burst into Grindelwald’s office, chest heaving, looking like something wild with the fevor of a man possessed.

Gellert started at Newt’s sudden entrance, heterochromatic eyes wide as he took in the sight of the man. "Newton? What—"

"I know why the caged bird sings," Newt gasped out. He stumbled forward until he could reach out a grasp Gellert’s coat lapels, then dragged the other man in for desperate, searing kiss. 

For all his surprise, all his shock, Gellert didn’t hesitate. His arms wound around Newt’s back and his fingers tangled into sunset curls. He reciprocated on instinct, softly, but as he came to terms with what Newt had said, what he’d meant, his breath stuttered and he deepened the kiss. 

Then he abruptly pushed Newt back by his shoulders. The redhead staggered back, disoriented and frustrated. Gellert’s eyes stopped any protest he could have made. They were dark, darker than Newt had ever seen them. A sea of molten gold and an ocean of perilous waters, each pulling him in until he was drowning, unable to move, to breathe, to _think_.

"Do that again," Gellert rumbled. "And I will not stop."

Newt’s eyes went from wild, to feral. He stalked back up to the Dark Lord until they were chest to chest. There was no facade to hide behind now. Newt had been stripped raw of any humility, any demureness he might’ve had. No, now he understood. Newt understood, and he wanted to _know_. He curled his lithe fingers around the back of Gellert Grindelwald’s neck and gave him a daring glare.

"Maybe I don’t want you to."

Molten eyes flashed, and starving mouths descended on each other once more as they fell into one another. 

They were lost. 

They were one. 

They were _loved_.


End file.
